Agents: The Angel
by Stormhawk
Summary: What Stef really thought of Smith the first time she saw him.


Title: The Angel  
  
Author: Stormhawk  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Disclaimer: This all belongs to The W Brothers and Warner Brothers. And the Agents, don't forget the agents. Stef is mine.  
  
Notes: Companion piece to Agents. Can be read on its own if you know who Stef is.  
  
Original Word Count: 1017 New Word Count: 1320  
  
Summary: A cute little Stef story. What she really thought of Smith the first time she saw him.  
  
Please Read and Review.  
  
"Mum, what happened to the angel?" Stef asked her mother as she was tucking her in after finishing the traditional bedtime story. Emma needed sleep, for some reason she was very tired and she had a slight headache.  
  
"What angel Stephanie?" The last thing she needed at the moment was to play twenty questions with a two-year-old.  
  
"The angel that fixed my doll," Stef said it like it was supposed to be common knowledge. Emma looked at her daughter in confusion; Mr. Johnson who worked at the doll hospital was anyone's last idea of what an angel would look like.  
  
"There was no angel," Emma said as she handed the doll to her, "Your doll is fine."  
  
"Only cause he fixed it. Didn't you see him or the other man?"  
  
"What other man?" Emma's head flared in pain, she just wished Stef would go to sleep.  
  
"Mean. He made the angel break my doll."  
  
"I thought the angel fixed your doll."  
  
"He did, after he broke it."  
  
"Well Stephanie what did this angel look like?" Emma asked, expecting to hear about white robes and halos.  
  
"Suit like uncle Fred. And sunglasses and a gun."  
  
Stef's 'uncle' Fred was Pam's current boyfriend. Fred was a lawyer. "An angel in a business suit that carries a gun?" Emma enquired wondering if two was too young to start therapy.  
  
"Yes mum."  
  
"Stef. Go to sleep."  
  
*****  
  
Becky Robinson had broken her arm when the old swing had broken. Becky's arm was in a cast and the swing had been repaired. No one in her class was brave enough to try it; they didn't want their arms broken as well.  
  
Seven-year-old Stef only got onto the swing because of a dare. All of the girls in her class begged her to get off crying, 'you'll get hurt' at her. Becky just called her a copycat.  
  
"Well, are you going or are you chicken?" The boy who dared her asked her. Knowing she would be labeled a wimp if she didn't do it Stef began to swing.  
  
"I'm going to do it." Stef proclaimed as she swung. The swing had been repaired well; there was only a little squeak that didn't seem too serious. Stef swung higher and higher into the air. All her classmates were cheering now.  
  
The cheering stopped as soon as one of the chains broke. The swing jerked violently and sent Stef went flying.  
  
She flew over her friends' heads and went crashing to the ground. It was only later that Stef remembered she had thought of her angel, hoping he could stop her from getting a broken arm.  
  
No one could understand what had happened. By some miracle Stef had flown over all the bone-breaking concrete and landed on a soft patch of ground where the well-meaning school gardener was intending to plant a tree.  
  
The only thing was the soft patch of ground was twenty feet from the swing. The famous Becky had gone less than three feet. Stef landed painfully but with no broken bones.  
  
Her friends came running over to her and helped her up. As she rose to her feet Stef thanked her angel.  
  
*****  
  
Where was her angel now? Stef thought as she bounded down the stairs away from Morpheus and the guy with the gun. She wanted nothing to do with people who jumped from fourth-story windows.  
  
She chided herself for thinking about her fictitious angel at a time like this. Her mother had tried to convince her for six years that there had been no angel. Twenty years on Stef was still nagged by the fact that she knew she had seen something.  
  
Stef shoved open the door to the old building and ran out onto the street. She spun as she heard something snap. The man in the suit was standing on the cracked pavement; he had also jumped out of the window.  
  
"What the hell are you?" Stef screamed at him. She hoped all of this was some bad dream. None of it seemed possible.  
  
He said nothing and he drew his gun. He was going to kill her! There was no way for her to escape. "You brought this on yourself." That statement sounded very familiar. She had heard someone say that before, long ago. Like a light bulb going on in her head she remembered him.  
  
"You fixed my doll," Stef said quickly then mentally kicked herself for how childish that statement sounded.  
  
"What?" Stef saw him falter. She silently thanked her brain; maybe he wouldn't kill her after all.  
  
"I was a little kid. Some guy ran into the house, you.killed him.' She trailed off realizing the same might happen to her. "The bullet smashed my doll then you fixed it." Somehow saying it out loud after all these years made him seem less like an angel and more like a murderer.  
  
Keep talking Stef she ordered herself. If he was talking then he can't be shooting. "That guy back then, he had something to do with these freaks didn't he?" She wasn't going to die without knowing what was going on.  
  
The man nodded once. "He was one of them."  
  
"I have nothing to do with them. You don't have to kill me.'  
  
"Unfortunately you know too much."  
  
"I don't know anything.' She had to think of something, anything that would save her life. "Behind you!" she screamed. She hoped he would believe Morpheus and his gang had come back for her.  
  
Stef breathed a sigh of relief as he turned and she was able to run away. If she could get far away maybe he wouldn't be able to get a good shot. She hoped that anyway.  
  
Everything in the world stopped making sense when she ran into a brick wall that hadn't been there a minute ago; it had appeared from thin air. "What the hell?" she muttered to herself. Morpheus' words came back to her, 'this is not the real world.' She turned and saw the man running toward her.  
  
One thing she had never done was give up without a fight but this situation seemed hopeless. Well unreal world take this, Stef thought as she punched the magically appearing wall. She punched the wall in pure frustration.  
  
A hole the size of her fist appeared in the wall where she punched it. She had never done anything like that before. Seeing the wall wasn't quite as wide it was sitting on Stef decided to run now and think later.  
  
Before she could run around the wall three more appeared and boxed her in. She watched in amazement as the man leapt straight over the wall and landed in front of her.  
  
As she saw the gun she had one thought, my angel is going to kill me.  
  
*****  
  
"Angel?" Stef turned away from the computer screen and saw Smith standing there wearing a half-smirk, half-smile. "You thought I was an angel?"  
  
"These are my memories. They're private."  
  
"You thought I was an angel?" he repeated.  
  
"I was two at the time. The memory just stayed with me."  
  
"I don't believe traditional angels carry Desert Eagles."  
  
"I was two, you fixed my doll."  
  
"Well it unintentionally gave you an innate awareness of the Matrix. That's how you avoided getting a broken arm."  
  
"How long have you been standing there?"  
  
"A while."  
  
"So when a human sees an agent do something.incredible.some part of them becomes aware of the Matrix?"  
  
"Yes. Most become recruits for one side or the other. One became an agent."  
  
Stef looked at him about to raise the issue of Agency recruits who turned into traitors when a giggle escaped from her. She clamped her hand over her mouth desperately trying to stop laughing.  
  
"What is so funny Mimosa?"  
  
"Name?" She asked him knowing she would get his default answer.  
  
"Smith. Agent Smith."  
  
'Smith,' she said imitating him. 'Angel Smith.'  
  
The End.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Does anyone besides me notice that there is only one letter of difference between 'agent' and 'angel'? 


End file.
